Now let us show it you: A multimodal discourse analysis of websites offering United States-Mexico border crossing tours

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A multimodal discourse analysis of websites offering

United States-Mexico border crossing tours

Master Thesis Tourism and Culture

Radboud University Nijmegen Aline Arts

Supervised by Brigitte Adriaensen December 15, 2019

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Abstract

This thesis analysed in what ways organisations offering United States-Mexico border crossing tours construct and communicate meanings of the tour on their website by analysing layout and design, visual and textual elements of those websites, applying a multimodal discourse analysis. Seven websites of both United States-based and Mexico-based organisations were analysed. Although the organisations focus on different aspects of the border, they all want to give their tour on the United States-Mexican border an educational meaning. However, visual and textual elements of the border imply otherwise for most websites. Referring to or using words and images that belong to the circle of representation of typical tourism activities, the tour is given the meaning of entertainment, leisure, sensation, experiencing the out of the ordinary and fun to a greater or lesser extent. Besides, the border is presented as creating distinctions, but those are interesting and safe and not dangerous or problematic. Organisations choose to give one or two perspectives on the border (social, environmental, political, artistic) and do not show that there is a versatility of opinions and views on the borderline. Only Mexican-based organisations pay attention to the relation between the border and people living near it and the effects of the border on people.

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Appendix 1 | Center for Immigration Studies 64 Appendix 2 | Google Images results for Center for Immigration Studies 65 Appendix 3 | Center for Immigration Studies 66 Appendix 4 | Google Images results for Center for Immigration Studies 67 Appendix 5 | Center for Immigration Studies 68 Appendix 6 | Google Images results for Center for Immigration Studies 69

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4 Appendix 8 | Edgeline Productions Border Tours 71 Appendix 9 | Google Images results for Edgeline Productions Border Tours 72 Appendix 10 | Edgeline Productions Border Tours 73 Appendix 11 | Google Images results for Edgeline Productions Border Tours 74 Appendix 12 | Edgeline Productions Border Tours 75 Appendix 13 | Edgeline Productions Border Tours 76 Appendix 14 | Google Images results for Edgeline Productions Border Tours 77 Appendix 15 | Center for Immigration Studies 78

Appendix 16 | Parque EcoAlberto 79

Appendix 17 | Google Images results for Parque EcoAlberto 80 Appendix 18 | Edgeline Productions Border Tours 81 Appendix 19 | Edgeline Productions Border Tours 82 Appendix 20 | Google Images results for Edgeline Productions Border Tours 83 Appendix 21 | Edgeline Productions Border Tours 84 Appendix 22 | Edgeline Productions Border Tours 85

Appendix 23 | Gray Line Tours 86

Appendix 24 | Parque EcoAlberto 87

Appendix 25 | MAGA 88

Appendix 26 | Google Images results for MAGA 89 Appendix 27 | Turista Libre via Eventbrite 90 Appendix 28 | Google Images results for Turista Libre via Eventbrite 91 Appendix 29 | Turista Libre via Eventbrite 92

Appendix 30 | MAGA 93

Appendix 31 | Gray Line Tours 94

Appendix 32 | San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network 95 Appendix 33 | Edgeline Productions Border Tours 96

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Introduction

Introduction

In the first episode of Netflix series Dark Tourist, journalist and filmmaker David Farrier takes part in a tour that gives tourists the opportunity to experience what it is like to cross the border between Mexico and the United States as an illegal migrant. Although the series never mentions where or by whom the border crossing tour is organised, it has been confirmed that this was the so-called Caminata Nocturna of Mexican Theme Park EcoAlberto (Triple J; US Immigration Bond Expert). This tour has received media attention before, discussing the peculiarity of the tour’s subject and performance (Adwar; Ayres; Corduroy; Gates; Gómez-Robledo; Johnson; O’Gilfoil Healy; Wal). During a few hour trip through the desert, hills, brambles and riverbeds on the property of the Parque EcoAlberto in the state of Hidalgo, people are being scoffed, robbed, shouted at and fatigued. The park claims that it wants to raise consciousness amongst mostly Mexican tourists about what illegal immigrants have to go through to cross the border. Partially financed by the Mexican government, the tour is supposed to discourage Mexicans from trying to cross the border with the United States by showing them different kinds of dangers and educate people on the risks of crossing the border illegally (O’Gilfoil Healy).

Parque EcoAlberto, which is located more than a 1000 kilometres from the actual border, has been criticised for its simulated migration tour. Hasian, Maldonado and Ono have critically analysed the park and conclude in their article “Thanatourism, Caminata Nocturna, and the Complex Geopolitics of Mexico’s Parque EcoAlberto” that the tour

allow[s] those with polyvalent interests and complex motives to craft cultural identities as they engage in social imaginaries and performative practices that allow for contrapuntal readings. For example, indigenous members of the Hñähñú community allow visitors to get a sense of some of the excitement, dread, and dangers that confront those who are willing to take the risk of crossing the Mexican-U.S. border, but they themselves can travel North and send money back home to their families (325).

Meaning and possible interpretation of the Caminata Nocturna are not unambiguous. The tour is supposed to discourage possible migrants from trying to cross the border, but it is also claimed that the tour might actually teach them how to do that (N. Alvarez 25). Parque EcoAlberto wants to focus on education and discouragement, but Hasian, Maldonado and Ono claim that the excitement and the staged dangers of the tour do also promote the tour as a sensational dark tourist attraction. This can be influenced and shaped by the narratives the organisation offers, for example during the tour itself and on the park’s website. This thesis looks at how the latter functions for Parque EcoAlberto’s Caminata Nocturna and for other United States-Mexico border crossing tours on offer, comparing the perspectives they give and the meanings they create for the tours, the border and its issues.

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The United States-Mexico border

On the 8th_{of November, 2016, Donald Trump was elected to become president of the United States of}

America. One of his promises during his campaign considered the border between Mexico and the United States: Trump claimed to adopt more hard-line immigration policies and to build a border wall to restrict illegal immigration and the problems of drugs and crime associated with it. This evoked divergent reactions all over the world. Trump's wall between the United States and Mexico is still a hot and relevant topic in American politics and the (international) media, but the border and its problems have been subject for discussion long before Trump’s announcements and presidency, in different contexts and for different reasons.

Before the nineteenth century, there was no border between Mexico and the United States as it is now known. Mexican migrants were not prevented from moving into the U.S., there were no fences or controls (St. John 1). The physical and legal border came into existence when Mexico and the United States decided they had to mark their territories and found out their ideas did not match, which led to a war in 1846 and eventually to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Mexico ceded about 55% percent of its territory to the United States, which included 1 million square miles, 100.000 Mexicans and 200.000 Native Americans (United States Government; Squire 6). The border would be marked by the placement of “monuments, cleared strips, and eventually, fences to make it a more visible and controllable dividing line” (St. John 2). People living in the territories that had now become American property were given one year to choose whether they wanted American or Mexican citizenship. Although the legal American citizenship did not grant them social acceptance and integration, more than 90 percent chose this option and stayed in the United States (Glass; Immigration and Ethnic History Society). The treaty did not only change the ownership of the land, but also the meanings of it. It would become “a marker of military sovereignty, a site of transborder trade, a home to binational communities, a customs and immigrations checkpoint, a divide between political and legal regimes, and even, at times, a battlefield” (St. John 3). However, the border zone remained an open region where people could move back and forth freely (Nail 168). It was not before the beginning of the twentieth century, during the Mexican Revolution and World War I, that the border would be given meaning as controlling and obstructing immigration (St. John 5). And only in 1945, the government started building substantial fences along the border (Nail 174).

Since the 1990s, the border between Mexico and the United States has been a police zone as a result of changes in the United States’ national defence and security policy and the drug war in Mexico. The border crosses areas of desert, mountains and rivers, and 654 miles of the 1933 miles along the border are fenced (Mark et al.). The border is the most frequently crossed border in the world, amongst others by migrants (Nail 167). Fences and Border Patrol’s operations were supposed to deter these migrants from crossing the border. People who did try could expect terrible consequences: according to non-profit organisation Alliance San-Diego, 83 people have been killed since the beginning of 2010 by

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7 border patrols and many more have been offended or brutalised, sometimes with lifelong effects like injuries. Migrants started to cross illegally via “exceptionally dangerous stretches of desert instead of traditional migration corridors. (…) the new border policy triggered a new phenomenon of migrant deaths due to hyperthermia, overexposure, and drowning” (C. J. Alvarez). Although illegal crossing did decrease, the immigration policies also had other, horrible results.

Border tourism as dark tourism

A border is a space of contradictions, negotiation, limits, control and possibilities: it separates and simultaneously brings together two or more different countries and people. It denotes and connotes both physical and psychological against movement and interaction of humans, objects and services (Gelbman & Timothy, “From hostile boundaries” 240). According to Alon Gelbman and Dallen J. Timothy, tourists are attracted to borders because they embody “the interface of different languages and cultures, social and economic systems and political realms” (“From hostile boundaries” 240). Borders can also be markers of history, be considered heritage because they tell a certain story. Border tourism can be considered dark tourism if tourists, for example, visit hostile boundaries because they seek to experience a feeling of unsafety or political controversiality.

Hasian, Maldonado and Ono conclude that the Caminata Nocturna can be considered a manifestation of dark tourism, due to the “deaths associated with [illegal] border crossings at the U.S.-Mexico Border” (315). Dark tourism has been subject of interest in tourism studies for a long time. According to Sharpley & Stone, there has even been an increase in both interest in and provision of dark tourism attractions over the last half century (5). The concept can be explained as “travel to a location wholly, or partially motivated by the desire for actual or symbolic encounters with death” (A. Seaton 234). The definition can also be widened, as Sharpley & Stone do: “places or events associated in one way or another with death, disaster and suffering” (5). The latter definition of dark tourism is more suitable for analysing border crossing tours since there are more ways of suffering connected to the border than death alone.

Website analysis

As Jayne Krisjanous argues, there has been relatively little research on the nature of websites in dark tourism. Analysis of the internet as part of the decision making and interpretation process of tourists is important in the field of tourism studies since an increasing number of tourists makes use of websites and other online sources for finding information. Tourists’ possible interpretations of attractions are always communicated, influenced and even constructed by the tour operator or provider. A website is one of the possible media which can affect tourists’ motivations to visit the attraction and influence their pre-visit knowledge and expectations as well as their behaviour and experience: it is part of the circle of

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8 representation (Lee et al.). Jenkins summarises the circle of representation as “the projection, perception and perpetuation” of signs or texts (306). Texts or signs are always informed by and projecting images and language that have been used before, and their meanings always exist in frameworks of power, politics, economics, cultures, etcetera. At their turn, they inform and structure people’s perception. When people’s performances and telling of narratives confirm the images and language used, the circle of representation is complete.

Interpretation and construction of meanings of signs and texts have been studied by semiotics. The first semiotic was constructed by Charles Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure. They found that the relation between the signifier (the representation, e.g. an image or word) and signified (what is represented) is arbitrary. Their theory was further developed by other theorists to explain the complex relationship between signifier and signified, such as their interchangeability and the importance of discourse in structures and systems of signs (MacCannell, The Tourist 117-119). Stuart Hall has been a very influential thinker considering those structures. He argues that language always operates in frameworks of power, in which meaning is always produced and consumed. However, meaning is never fixed or determined by the sender of a sign. Audiences (for example tourists) can receive meaning in different ways. That can be linked back to the circle of representation: people can confirm and establish the texts they are offered, but they can also unsettle or disclaim them (Procter 2).

In post-modern cultural studies, visual images, maps and even landscapes are seen as texts that represent the world. Tourist attractions can themselves be considered texts or signs, but representations containing information of attractions are signs too: plaques, travel books, stories told by visitors, and websites (MacCannell, The Tourist 109-110). Tourism imagery is selected carefully by amongst other tour operators, to create a specific image, a certain story. This image or story consists of many different textual, typographic, design and visual representational signifiers which can be given meaning in themselves, but which also create meaning in their correspondence or correlation. Both singular signifiers and their interplay reflects and shapes underlying cultural and social structures and ideologies, which must be taken into account when analysing this imagery (Mogan & Pritchard 25). That is why multimodal discourse analysis is used in this thesis to research the websites of United States-Mexico border crossing tours, on both sides of the border.

This research

Krisjanous researches 25 dark tourism websites to find how the dark tourism spaces in question are communicated and how resources are used to construct and communicate meanings, shape expectations and signal behaviour for the site (341-342). She chose to research a large number of websites from a broad range of countries, on different kinds of dark tourism attractions. This thesis will focus on a smaller amount of websites, owned by organisations offering United States-Mexico border crossing

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9 tours. The websites were selected on the basis of English language, except for Parque EcoAlberto, since the tour this park is offering has been covered in many news articles and might provide interesting information for this thesis. Selected organisations are Parque EcoAlberto, Gray Line Tours, Edgeline Productions Border Tours, San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network, Center for Immigration Studies, Turista Libra and MAGA. The tours or visits offered focus on different aspects of the border between the United States and Mexico and provide the tourist with information from different perspectives. By analysing and comparing images, fonts, narratives, stereotypes, backgrounds, etcetera of the seven websites mentioned before, more understanding will be obtained of how different stories of one subject, or different versions of one story, can be shaped and commodified for a particular audience. Therefore, the research question to be answered in this thesis is: In what ways do organisations offering United States-Mexico border crossing tours construct and communicate meanings of the tour on their website?

Unfortunately, it is not achievable to analyse the full circle of representation in this research. Since it is not possible for the researcher to travel to Mexico and for example interview people on their interpretation of a tour, the receival of meanings and following confirmation or unsettling of meanings as Stuart Hall discusses, will not be included in this thesis. Related to this, the focus of this research will also be on the supply side of United States-Mexico border crossing tours and not on the demand side.

Following the method used by Jayne Krisjanous, the first chapter will focus on design and layout: colours, symbols and spatial elements. In the second chapter, imagery will be analysed: photography, artwork and videos. The third chapter will take written signifiers into account: words, narratives and typographical choices. Looking into all different modalities and comparing and connecting them will help to create a full understanding of constructed meanings of United States-Mexico border crossing tours offered to tourists on different websites.

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Chapter 1

Status Quaestionis

Border crossing

People have been crossing borders for travel since the fourteenth century, when borders were being marked in Europe. Borderlands were not as clearly marked as they are nowadays and political control was vague, so the act of crossing borders as a tourist or traveler was very different from contemporary border crossing (Timothy, “Relationships”). Until the twentieth century, borders functioned as economic, cultural, political, social and geographical barriers, that enabled and reinforced countries’ political order and control and the protection of citizens. In the past decades, globalisation and cosmopolitanism encouraged changes in worldwide borders and border policies. Instead of related to restrictions and regulations, borders have come to be seen as interfaces of connectivity and encounter, “where political entities collide, economies converge and cultures blend” (Timothy, “Relationships”). A considerable amount of borders developed from completely closed, allowing no one to cross and having an extremely low level of permeability, into open crossings having no checkpoints and a very high level of permeability. Of course, there are many levels of permeability in between, and many borders are neither completely restricted nor entirely open (Timothy, Tourism). The opening up of borders is considered a positive effect of growth in international travel since it encourages the cooperation between neighbouring countries and facilitates the crossing of borders (Gelbman & Timothy, “From hostile boundaries” 244; Wachowiak). According to Oscar J. Martinez, many borderlands have changed from alienated borderlands, in which there is almost no cross-border interchange and movement, or co-existent borderlands, which allow for (minimal) cross-border cooperation when needed, into interdependent or even integrated borderlands. The former concerns border regions that are linked together by economic and social activities, the latter describes open borders that allow for many forms of cross-border exchange and concurrence (Martinez 1-5; Gelbman & Timothy, “From hostile boundaries” 243). This process is also called de-bordering (Gelbman & Timothy, “Differential tourism zones” 1).

De-bordering has influenced and influences tourism: crossing borders is an essential element of travelling, which can be both hindered and facilitated by means of policies. Less strict policies and more open border or even borderlessness make it easier for tourists to travel. Gelbman and Timothy argue that there are four possible relationships between tourism and borders: borders as barriers, borders as attractions or destinations, borders as landscape modifiers and borders as transit spaces (“Differential tourism zones” 3-6). Borders are perceived as barriers because they separate spaces, economies, histories, identities, and societies, as mentioned above, and because they can obstruct the course of tourists’ travels. They can also function as tourist attractions or destinations in and of themselves: people

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11 can be interested in the ways borders create spaces, economies, identities, and other circumstances that are different to the rest of a country or countries. Thirdly, the crossing of borders by tourists causes the development of border-tourism landscapes, involving for example hotels, shopping zones, restaurants and in some cases even red light districts. Tourists can be interested in seeing “how state limits create visual and corporeal dissimilarities on opposite sides”, how landscapes are modified by tourism (Gelbman & Timothy, “Differential tourism zones” 5). And lastly, borders function as transit zones because they need to be passed by tourists. Because tourists do not assign any further meaning to borders in this case, they can be considered transitory spaces of placelessness (Gelbman & Timothy, “Differential tourism zones” 6).

This research focuses on the border between the United States and Mexico as an attraction or destination in terms of border crossing tours. Other functions of the border (a barrier, landscape modifier or transit space) will of course also be of importance, but on a second level. Wachowiak has described that the ritual of crossing a border as a part of tourism has become more attractive in the past decades connected to globalisation, that historic borders and their remnants have become tourist attractions and that they are sometimes even attributed the status of heritage, which can be of interest to tourists. Gelbman and Timothy have researched how the Island of Peace on the Israeli-Jordanian border, the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia and the Berlin Wall have developed from closed borders into tourist attractions, and conclude that

borders become commemorative spaces of the historical past, teaching awareness and understanding of former disagreements, with an emphasis on the positive elements of a more peaceful present and its symbolic power for the future (…), [which] may contribute significantly to preserving and encouraging lasting relations of peace and cooperation (“From hostile boundaries” 256-257).

Borders (have) not only become (former) places of danger and fear, but also places of peace, cooperation and the possibility of a better future. When countries work together, or when border tourism helps to strengthen the image and narrative of a region, its identity can be shaped, interactions can be facilitated and barriers overcome. For the development of borderlines into tourist attractions, symbolical elements are very important, since they can create meaning of those landscapes for tourists (Gelbman 193; Liberato et al. 1347). Border features like walls and flags intrigue and fascinate tourists, because they mark differences – in cultures, economic systems, politics, and in some cases time (Gelbman & Timothy, “From hostile boundaries” 240). For example, border fences can come to connote a closed and hostile border as well as an open and peaceful one: visitors of Israel’s border can feel the history of war and look at the neighbouring country through a fence, but they also know that cooperation with that country is in development (Gelbman 210).

However, not all international borders have become more open. Some borders have closed in need for more order, control and protection of citizens, amongst others the northern and southern

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12 boundaries of the United States as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This process is called re-bordering (Gelbman & Timothy, “Differential tourism zones” 2). The United States borders are less permeable than they have ever been, making it hard for people to cross and creating boundaries of exclusion rather than inclusion (Gelbman & Timothy, “From hostile boundaries” 243). Hostility and lack of safety for people wanting to cross the border between the United States and Mexico may scare tourists away from visiting the border. However, politically controversial areas do appeal to some. Tourists can be attracted to hostile and closed borders due to the potential of actual danger, searching for something they do not experience in their daily lives when travelling, which is one of the general explanations for dark tourism (Butler).

Dark tourism

Travel to places that are associated with death, disaster and suffering is an ever-existing phenomenon, but it has not always been studied. In 1989, Dean MacCannell introduced negative sightseeing, which considered tourism to representations of poverty, bad urban structures, social ills, etcetera (The Tourist 40). The labels black spots and sensations sights were proposed by Chris Rojek, to indicate “the commercial developments of grave sites and sites in which celebrities or large numbers of people have met with sudden and violent death”(188). The most commonly used concept of dark tourism was first mentioned in the field of tourism in 1996 by John Lennon and Malcolm Foley. It was defined as tourism to places presenting real and commodified death and disaster, like “battlefields, celebrity death sites, graveyards, cemeteries, atrocity and disaster sites, murder locations, memorials, museums of war, torture and horror” (T. Seaton 521). Lennon and Foley focused on the location/destination aspect of dark tourism and the (re)presentation of death and suffering. Tony Seaton developed a related concept around the same time: thanatourism, concentrating on the types of behaviour, experiences and motivations of tourists instead of on destinations (521). Later, dark tourism came to be used as an umbrella term and the concepts were questioned, researched interdisciplinary and viewed from multiple perspectives. Other concepts relating to dark tourism were suggested and developed to create nuances in and define the phenomenon further: tragic tourism, grief tourism, fright tourism and morbid tourism (Bowman & Pezzullo 188). Every concept has its own focus, exclusions, problems and limitations, as it is rooted in its own discourse and context. Development of the field of study was also characterised by more “critical attention to the motivations and experiences of tourists who visit places of death and suffering” (Light 277). It was argued that the kind of place that is being visited cannot be disconnected from the motivations, goals and experiences of tourists and that studying them individually is problematic. However, as the scope of this thesis does not allow for answering questions of both tourist motivation to visit “dark” places and questions considering communication by the supply side of dark tourism, the ways in which research can connect the two will not be discussed here.

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13 The development of dark tourism has been influenced by several historical European discourses. Tony Seaton argues that Christianity, antiquarianism and Romanticism had a notable impact on the development of tourism. Christianity is preoccupied with death and suffering and encouraged people to travel to places associated with this, in the form of pilgrimages. In the sixteenth century, antiquarianism emerged and focused on national heritage. Visitation of battlefields, death sites of national heroes and ruins became more common. Two centuries later, Romanticism inspired people to search for the Other, to escape from the everyday world, which resulted amongst others in (re)new(ed) fascinations with death (T. Seaton 526-534). After the First and Second World War, the presentation of tourism linked to death and disaster changed again. Battlefields and sites associated with victims of the war became important tourist attractions (Stone 1567). According to Lennon and Foley, the rise of global communication technologies made it easier to spread the word on and enlarge interest in tourism to places related to death, disaster or suffering. Dark tourism became a more commonly known phenomenon. Besides, the organisation and design of places were no longer mostly focused on education, but also on commodification and commercialisation, which implies that this kind of tourism has become more accessible for everyone (Bowman & Pezzullo 189). The growth of interest in dark tourism can also be connected to another aspect of contemporary Western societies. Death is not visible anymore, it “has been largely removed from the public realm and replaced with media-inspired cultural representations of Significant Other Death”, as Philip Stone describes (1566). Death has become an “other” as it is not considered part of life anymore, both own death and the dead. It can even be commercialised and sold, in some cases as art or entertainment. People may be seeing dark tourism as a way to think of the phenomenon of death in a way different from the way they would be able to think of it in everyday life, which can be connected to Butler’s explanation for the attraction of dark tourism.

Using the term dark tourism also brings (possible) problems. An important point of discussion is the use of the word “dark” in dark tourism, which can be seen to connote a value judgement as it contrasts with “light”. Following the interpretation of Michael Bowman and Phaedra Pezzullo, “dark” implies that the place or act of tourism is “disturbing, troubling, suspicious, weird, morbid or perverse” (190). Light tourism, on the other hand, can be valued as good, morally right, responsible or normal (T. Seaton 525). The concept thus denies that tourists can have varied motives for travel. Besides, “darkness” is a socially constructed concept, which means that labelling a site as “dark” seems to be a complicated matter of perspective and privilege” (Bowman & Pezzullo 191). Making the debate even more difficult, a distinction can and maybe should be made between naming the subjects and places of tourism, the goals of tourists and tourist attractions and the behaviour of tourists “dark”. If the aforementioned adjectives are applicable to the subjects or places of dark tourism, its goal or effect does not have to be dark: dark tourism can actually “promote peace, educate visitors and provide visitors with opportunities ‘to critically reflect on their everyday lives’” (Seraphin 523). It might be argued that the darkness of dark tourism is also dependent on the communication of the supply side of tourism and the

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14 motivations and interpretations of tourists. Several researchers have developed theories, models or typologies for shades of darkness in dark tourism, but as the problem with those attempts is that they are unending (Ashworth & Isaac 318), and because the goal of this thesis is not to classify attractions according to their darkness, that subject will not be further explained (Stone; Strange & Kempa).

Another problem with the term dark tourism is its suggested connection to postmodernism in Western societies. Lennon and Foley treated the concept as form of postmodernism, explaining tourists’ interests and behaviour as a result of anxiety about modernity (Light 279; Bowman & Pezzullo 188; Ashworth & Isaac 317). As Ashworth and Isaac write, though, “an interest in the bizarre, and specifically death, is as ancient as tourism or commemoration itself and is as much a result and support of modernity as a reaction to it” (317). Furthermore, treating dark tourism as an aspect of postmodernism creates limits for understanding, so most contemporary scholars consider postmodernism not as essentially but optionally linked to dark tourism.

As mentioned before, this thesis will only focus on the supply side of tourism by researching attractions’ websites. As the concept of dark tourism has mostly been used for this kind of research (Light 280), it will also be used in this thesis. The notion of dark tourism as defined by Philip Stone, “the act of travel to tourist sites associated with death, suffering or the seemingly macabre” is considered most applicable and will, therefore, be used in the following chapters (1568). In searching for and choosing this definition, the word “associated” is essential. Selected attractions are not all locations of death or suffering, which some definitions imply, but do cover a subject related to these concepts. The extension of death-related tourism by suffering and the macabre has also been decisive as not all tourism to United States-Mexico border crossing tours is associated with death. The word “seemingly” is also important in the choice for this definition. Interpretation and experience of the tours is never fixed and whether they can be considered dark or macabre is dependent on perspective.

Dark tourism website analysis

As assumed by Philip Stone, interpretations and experiences are strongly influenced by social environments and reality (1570). In contemporary societies, this social environment and reality are no longer only physical, but also influenced by and consisting of a digital environment including websites, social media, and social applications. This is also true for dark tourism. As Jayne Krisjanous argues, “dark tourism ventures’ websites are an important means to communicate with target markets” (341) and Katie Heuermann and Deepak Chhabra write that “it cannot be denied that the purchase of tourism products by customers from websites has exponentially grown over the last few decades. These purchase intentions are, to a large extent, influenced by the image portrayed by signature websites” (217). However, there is not much literature available yet on how dark tourism websites construct and communicate meaning (Krisjanous 342). There are only two relevant researches discussing this. The

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15 first is Krisjanous’ analysis of communication on dark tourism websites in relation to tourists’ pre-visit engagement with how a site is considered to be contested. Heuermann and Chhabra’s study is the second one, which looks into the place of dark tourism sites at Stone’s spectrum of darkness based on their websites by identifying different types of authenticity. Both analysed 25 websites of different kinds of dark tourism attractions. Heuermann and Chabbra confined their research to the United States and used coding and categorising to determine the levels of darkness of websites. Krisjanous found her subjects in different countries and applies multimodal discourse analysis and social semiotics to identify and understand how dark tourism websites create expectations, motivate, inform and signal behaviour for tourists. She based her methodology on the six-phase “Multimodal Framework for Analyzing Websites as Cultural Expressions” provided by Luc Pauwels. As the aim of this research is to find how and what meaning is constructed on the selected websites, which is closely related to Krisjanous’ research, multimodal discourse analysis will be applied as explained further in the next paragraph. The thesis will add another way of comparison to the existent body of research on dark tourism websites. Instead of on divergent dark tourism attractions, the focus will be on multiple attractions marketing one particular topic and one particular location: crossing the border between Mexico and the United States. The key objective is to gain more insight into (un)conscious (divergent) meanings tourism organisations create for one particular subject and how they do that.

Theoretical framework

Multimodal discourse analysis is an extension of the principles of semiotics, so a short introduction into this science of signs will be given before looking further into discourse analysis. The first semiotic was formulated by Charles Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure, who discovered that the relationship between a signifier (word, object, image, etcetera) and its meaning, the signified, are arbitrary (MacCannell, The

Tourist 117). Together, the signifier and the signified are the sign, which “represents something to

someone” (MacCannell, The Tourist 109). The relationship between the signifier and the signified always exists in a system of signs which must be unravelled to understand the meaning of a sign. This system of signs is a language, which does not necessarily need to be verbal or textual. As Stuart Hall explains, sounds, images, music, even objects can have their own language: they “stand for or represent our concepts, ideas and feelings in such a way as to enable others to “read”, decode or interpret their meaning in roughly the same way that we do” (5). In the contemporary world, different media also produce meaning in their own language. According to Dean MacCannell, even the world of tourism is full of signs: attractions, plaques, travel books, informative books, guides, stories told by visitors, websites, etcetera (The Tourist 41). Semiotics is concerned with how representations works and how language can produce meaning. But this production of meaning does not happen in only one possible way – not everyone will interpret signs in the same way, since people may have a different background

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16 or receive the sign in a different context or system. The theory of semiotics has been developed further to address and understand this complexity, amongst others by addressing discourse.

Discourse analysis studies representation not as a general language, but looks at the construction of meaning in a historically or spatially specific context. It is argued that language always operates in frameworks of power. This framework or context is called a regime or discourse, which defines “what is and is not appropriate in our formulation of, and our practices in relation to, a particular subject or site of social activity; what knowledge is considered useful, relevant and ‘true’ in that context; and what sorts of persons or ‘subjects’ embody its characteristics” (Hall 6). There may also be multiple discourses or circuits of meaning at work. Representation, signification and the giving of meaning will always be fluid, a kind of dialogue between sender, received and (shared) cultural codes. Besides, meaning is not only being constructed in the broader cultural context of the sign, but also sent and received via a particular medium; Hall’s “material form” or the “vehicle” as MacCannell mentions (Hall 9; MacCannell, The Tourist 111). This medium can also add a layer of meaning.

Contemporary mediums often use multiple modes to distribute signs or messages, like television (sound and visuals) and websites (multiple kinds of visual information: images and texts, sometimes also sound) and the functions and roles those modes fulfil may be (inter)changed or replaced (Machin). Interpretation based on singularly linguistic models is in many situations not sufficient or even inappropriate. Machin finds that visual signs ask for or evoke a very different semiotic process in the receiver than textual signs do. Excluding modes would create an incomplete and possibly wrong interpretation. That problem is possibly solved by multimodal discourse analysis, which is a relatively young set of concepts and approaches (Krisjanous 342). Its most important characteristic is that it looks into both how individual modes create meaning and how meaning is created by their interplay, in their context, which allows for find more or other meanings than they would realise individually. There is not much literature available on the use of multimodal discourse analysis in tourism and the definition of modes in multimodal discourse analysis is quite uncertain. Krisjanous’ mentions “sensory modes or modalities” without defining them (342), but those terms probably refer to the physiological or sensory channels and the definition from the medium side Pauwels describes (250). Sensory channels are visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory. For analysing media, though, those modes are not very interesting. Continuing Pauwels’ line of thought, in this thesis modes will be defined from the medium side, which mostly uses the visual mode. The auditory mode can also be part of websites, but as that is not the case for the selected ones for this research, that mode will not be discussed. The visual mode can be split into textual parts, typography, layout and design features and images, as will be further explained in the paragraph on methodology (250).

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Sub-questions

The main question of this thesis is: In what ways do organisations offering United States-Mexico border crossing tours construct and communicate meanings of the tour on their website?

In the three following chapters of this thesis, sub-questions will be discussed in order to eventually answer the main question. The sub-questions are as follows:

1. In what ways do layout and design of the websites of organisations offering United States-Mexico border crossing tours construct and communicate meanings of the tour offered? 2. In what ways do visual signifiers on the websites of organisations offering United States-Mexico

border crossing tours construct and communicate meanings of the tour offered?

3. In what ways do written signifiers of the websites of organisations offering United States-Mexico border crossing tours construct and communicate meanings of the tour offered?

Methodology

Website selection

Before starting the multimodal discourse analysis, a number of websites of tourism attractions had to be selected for this research. The main prerequisite for selection was that the tourism attraction offered a tour on the subject illegally crossing the border between the United States and Mexico. Before starting the multimodal discourse analysis, a number of websites of tourism attractions had to be selected for this research. The main prerequisite for selection was that the tourism attraction offered a tour on the subject illegally crossing the border between the United States and Mexico. Selected website also had to be available in English due to the researcher’s limited knowledge of other languages. The Spanish-language website of Parque EcoAlberto’s website is an exception and was added to the objects of research because the tour that this park is offering has been discussed on several international and social media channels or platforms and might provide interesting information for this thesis. Other websites were found with the help of the researcher’s thesis supervisor and by searching via Google, using terms like illegal border crossing, border crossing tours, border tours, Mexico-United States border, border wall and illegal migration in various combinations. The terms were searched for on Google in both English and Spanish to increase the chance of finding websites relating to the subject of this research. As the number of organisations offering a tour related to border crossing of the United States-Mexican border was not very large, no selection was made of the kind of organisations offering the tour. Both websites of commercial tourism organisations (Parque EcoAlberto, Gray Line Tours, Edgeline Productions Border Tours and Turista Libre) and websites of non-profit/non-partisan organisations (Center for Immigration Studies, MAGA and San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network) are included in this research. Below, all the organisations are introduced shortly.

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18 Parque EcoAlberto is a vacation park that offers the combination of spa facilities, adventurous ecotourism and local dishes. It focuses on providing tourists a fun time. The Caminata Nocturna or Night Walk was born with a different intent, though; “to raise awareness in our young countrymen community and show them that they should not risk their lives seeking for a better life in another country” (Parque EcoAlberto).

Gray Line Tours, Edgeline Productions Border Tours and Turista Libre are tour operators. The former offers local and regional package tours, focusing on groups like schools, churches, associations and hotel groups, but also creating tours for individuals. Its aim is to let guests become temporary locals (Gray Line Arizona Gray Line Tucson). Edgeline Productions was found by a retired Border Patrol Supervisory Agent and offers one day tours on the geopolitical environment of the border. The last tour operator mentioned focuses on offering tourists “pastimes typically reserved for locals” (Turista Libre “What is Turista Libre?”).

Besides those profit-making organisations, border wall tours offered by some non-profit organisations will be researched. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organisation, aiming to provide immigration policy makers, academics, news media and citizens with reliable information on consequences of legal and illegal immigration into the United States. MAGA is a non-profit art organisation that was asked by the United States government to create, build and test eight border wall prototypes for Donald Trump’s proposed border wall (MAGA “Press Release”). The organisation offers only one tour to the test site and prototypes. The San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network, part of the non-profit, non-governmental Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladores, also offers only one tour. The organisation “ties together people in the nation’s largest border town who want to build an alliance between working people across that border” (San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network San Diego). The tour is supposed to teach people on the Maquiladoras and their workers’ struggles.

It is important to note that for Turista Libre, not only its webpage for tours will be analysed, but also the Eventbrite webpages offering tickets for the border tour. Information on this tour has been removed from Turista Libre’s own website, but can still be found on Eventbrite. Comparison of the information on currently offered tours on this webpage to the information on linked Eventbrite pages shows that the content of both is very similar, which makes it highly plausible that the information on the “‘Against the Wall’ border proximity pilgrimage tour” Eventbrite page has previously been placed on this page of the organisation’s website. Therefore, the content of the Eventbrite website will be analysed chapter 3 and 4. However, the layout and design of both websites is very different, so the Turista Libre website will be studied in chapter 2.

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Multimodal discourse analysis

The sub-questions and main question of this research will be answered though analysis of the websites by adjusted application of the framework for multimodal discourse analysis provided by Luc Pauwels, also looking at Jayne Krisjanous’ use of the framework. Pauwels proposes six phases that maintain a certain logic of discovery and migrate “from fairly easy-to-quantify and code data, to more interpretative analysis focused on discovering the metaphorical and symbolic dimensions of websites or to unraveling their intended and even unintended meanings” (252). His phases can be used as a basis and customised for analysing different kinds of website as cultural expressions.

The first phase aims at the first impressions and reactions that are not yet influenced by knowledge or further insights of the researcher. As this phase is more focused on the audience and reception than on the supply side of dark tourism, it will not be included in this research. Making an inventory of website features and attributes, main content categories and topics and denotatively reading content and form, which characterises the second phase, will be part of this thesis as this provide a first basic set of indications of the website. Attention will also be paid to what features, categories and topics are absent, which can also be meaningful. Pauwels’ third phase is the “in-depth analysis of content and stylistic features”, which is the most interesting and important one. Both intra-model analysis and cross-model analysis will be applied, paying attention to the potential information in individual modes and signifiers and to the complex forms of interplay between those. The cultural connotations of verbal/written signifiers, typographic signifiers, visual representational types and signifiers and layout and design signifiers and their relations and cross-modal interplay will be taken into account. Again, inverted or negative analysis will also be applied here when something’s absence stands out. The fourth and sixth phase, considering point of view or voice, implied audiences, purposes and context analysis will not be applied individually but incorporated in the previously mentioned phases. “Analysis of dynamic information organisation and spatial priming strategies” goes beyond the scope of this research and the academic skills of the researcher, so it was decided that the fifth phase will not be covered here. Website analysis of all the previously mentioned signifiers can take different approaches in terms of time. Here, a snapshot approach will be applied: the selected websites will be analysed at a certain point in time, in contrast to the diachronic approach which takes the data from multiple analyses at different moments in time and examines differences and similarities between them. As this thesis must be written within six months and the chance that the content of the selected websites will change significantly is quite small, the second approach is not considered feasible or interesting.

This thesis will try to analyse websites, their signifiers and the relations between signifiers from multiple perspectives and consider their possible meanings in the contexts of several discourses, but that will, of course, be limited by the researcher’s (academic) background, scope of knowledge and available English-language sources providing more information on contexts. Meanings change as we interpret signs from another perspective, in another cultural, historical, linguistic, etcetera context: meaning may

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20 be temporarily fixed in a particular system of representation but is never fixed “in the world”, as there are always different circuits of meaning and discourses at work through which we can create meaning (Hall 7, 10). As Tony Seaton writes, “any and all sites are polysemic and do not possess an inherent, essentialist identity that can be fixed to a single meaning whatever the intentions of their creators” (523). And on top of that, even multiple meanings found will never be fixed or all-encompassing.

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Chapter 2 | Layout and design analysis

Introduction

As explained in the introduction, this thesis mostly follows the phases of multimodal discourse analysis as proposed by Luc Pauwels. Before conducting an in-depth analysis of all kinds of signifiers the webpages contain (formal elements like layout and design, visual representations and written signifiers) it is important to make an inventory of features and attributes, and determine the main topics of the research objects. All objects of research offer a border crossing tour, but the websites look and work differently. In this research, only the webpages considering the tour were researched, not the complete websites, as those often contain pages and aspects that do not add value to this research. Only for Edgeline Productions Border Tours the full website was analysed, as its multiple pages all contain information on the border tour offered. After determining the features and attributes of the webpages/website, their layout and design will be discussed in this chapter.

Features and attributes

The features and attributes of websites can give information on the intent of the website’s organisations. As Richard Hallett and Judith Kaplan-Weinger write, “Tourism websites are consciously composed to include some texts and exclude others, so that the site constructs for a destination an identity that is both indicative and inviting. Incorporating multiple modalities, website creators exploit patterns and functions of linguistic and visual semiotics” (117-118). All websites use a combination of written and visual representational signifiers. However, the Center for Immigration Studies has relatively little text on its webpage for the 2020 Border Tour, because that tour has not been planned yet. San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network on the other hand has included no photographs and only one image on its webpage; the network’s logo. This will be analysed further in the chapter on visual signifiers.

The size of the websites and their pages are also important. Cuauhtemoc Luna-Nevarez and Michael R. Hyman make a distinction between small and large page sizes in their research on destination website design. Small pages have a length “less than or equal to two screens using a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution”, large pages are more than two screens long (96). Among the research objects, only the tour-focused pages of Edgeline Productions Border Tours and San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network are small-sized.

The most commonly present aspects and features, although not present on all websites, are the name of the organisation; the title of the tour; a description of the (goal and/or itinerary of the) tour; information on price and reservation or tickets; photographs; a video; testimonials or reviews from

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22 previous guests; hyperlinks to more information on other media platforms; a map of the tour or location; social media links and contact information. The name of the organisation and name of the tour can be considered essential and are included on all websites. Logically, a description of the tour, its goal and its itinerary is given on every webpage except for the Center for Immigration Studies’ one, because there is currently no tour offered. It does announce that the 2020 Border Tour will be announced in the fall. Information on costs can sometimes be found in the tour description (Parque EcoAlberto, San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network, Turista Libre) or can be found by following a ticket link or button to another page of website (Gray Line Tours, Edgeline Productions Border Tours, MAGA). The Center for Immigration Studies does, again, not display those since there are at the moment of research no tickets that can be bought. Some websites (Gray Line Tours, Edgeline Productions Border Tours and MAGA) have also inserted a map, mostly via Google Maps, with the location of the organisation or even the tour’s route. This is an important element for enhancing the visitor’s experience and website reliability (Luna-Nevarez & Hyman 95). Photographs are often included in the header of the page and combined with the description of the tour. Half of the websites (Gray Line Tours, Edgeline Productions Border Tours, MAGA and Turista Libre) use only one photograph per page to illustrate the tour or environment (map, header or footer not included). Center for Immigration Studies and Parque EcoAlberto have included more photographs. MAGA, Edgeline Productions Border Tours and San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network are the only ones using a video to create a visual impression of their tour, although MAGA is the only one inserting it directly onto the page. The other two use a hyperlink to the visuals. Hyperlinks are also used to refer to social media, often in the shape of social media icons on the top or bottom of the page (Center for Immigration Studies, Parque EcoAlberto, Gray Line Tours, MAGA, Turista Libre), or additional information on other media platforms. The latter is only used by the San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Network, which links to a blog on maquiladora workers’ struggles, and Parque EcoAlberto, that refers to photographs and tour schedules on their Facebook page. Contact information is included on all websites, although websites include this on a separate “contact” page except for Edgeline Productions Border Tours and San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network, which show their contact information in the header or footer of every webpage. The in- or exclusion of those elements and how they construct meaning will be analysed in the following chapters on visual and written signifiers.

Remarkably absent on most websites are testimonials and reviews from visitors or spaces for direct interaction, such as feedback areas. Only Center for Immigration Studies contains “Accounts and Pictures of Past Tours” and “Testimonials from Past Guests”. Other websites do not want to attract its audience with this aspect. The research objects do also not refer to well known, comparing and evaluating tourism websites like TripAdvisor or Yelp, although some of the researched organisations can be found on those platforms – in particular tours offered by tour operators. The websites do refer to their social media pages, which are a common and important source of destination information for

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23 potential tourists as they can find reviews or accounts of experiences of past visitors here (Luna-Nevarez & Hyman 104). This can be connected to what kind of image the organisations want to create or to what kind of people they want to attract. It is remarkable that only the Center for Immigration Studies has included reviews of tourists, because the organisation explicitly wants to provide people with reliable information and is non-profit. Showing testimonials makes the tour seem more of a leisure activity. The actual commercial organisations that need to convince tourists to take part in their tours do not show any testimonials, implying a more educational purpose and independence of profit made by having as many tourists as possible participating.

Another aspect that is absent on all research object except for the Edgeline Productions Border Tours website are advertorials. This is common on tourism websites offering tours, as they want to focus on selling their own products and not someone else’s. Luna-Nevarez and Hyman also note that the efficacy of ads is declining, although many commercial websites contain at least one (104). This combined with the fact that advertorials make websites look more commercial and consumer-oriented, which the research objects do not seem to be aiming for, may have led the investigated organisation to not include banner ads.

Layout and design

In this chapter the formal elements layout and design will be discussed, before looking into the visual and written signifiers of the websites. According to Luc Pauwels, “website design and layout features are essentially tools used to attract, direct and invoke the desired effect on, or response from, website visitors. However, through the choices, they also convey producer-related ideas, opinions and aspirations” (255). It is important to take this into account for answering the main question. The sub-question that will be answered in this chapter is: In what ways do layout and design of the websites of organisations offering United States-Mexico border crossing tours construct and communicate meanings of the tour offered?

All organisations offering a border tour have created their own website, not following or using a template. They are structured or designed in similar manners, though: all websites show the organisation’s name and a menu on top; have a white or light grey background, allowing the pictures and text to attract most attention; and are vertically oriented.

All research objects are structured or designed in similar manners. The texts are mostly black, except for the text on the webpage of the Center for Immigration Studies, which is greenish and dark blue. Colour schemes used for the header and titles are often blue or brown or a combination of the two. Gray Line Tours adds a sharp yellow to those colours and Parque EcoAlberto stands out for adding greens to its bright scheme. The only striking colour of the San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network’s website is the orange of the header. Except for Parque EcoAlberto and Gray Line Tours, the

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24 websites do not use loud colours in their layout, which creates the impression and emphasises that their goal is to provide the audience with information, not to entertain or indoctrinate it to do anything. The modest use of colours also has another effect for the webpage of Center for Immigration Studies: the original social media symbols attract more attention because they are positioned at the top of the page and because their colours do not fit into the regular colour scheme and shapes of the website. The Center could have chosen to change the design of those symbols and place them at the bottom of the page to make them less present, as is the case for the websites of MAGA and Parque EcoAlberto. Besides, two of the social media symbols are already included in the Center’s site menu, and those have actually been adapted to its design. This makes the symbols on the page stand out even more.

Spatial relations and balance are not challenging either: the texts can be read from top to bottom in one or two columns. Parque EcoAlberto, Gray Line Tours, MAGA and Center for Immigration Studies use two columns, often showing text in one and pictures or additional information in the other column. Parque EcoAlberto is the only website positioning the text that provides the most important information in its right column. It is also one of the three websites distributing this text evenly between the margins instead of aligning it on the left, which makes sense because that would attract attention to the left side of the website. The other two websites centring its essential texts are Center for Immigration Studies and Edgeline Productions.

Some of the researched websites are modern-looking: they have a clean, flat and square design with a limited amount of verbal information. Their design is not avant-garde or highly attractive though, just pleasant, well-arranged and user-friendly. San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network and Edgeline Productions Border Tours have a more old fashioned look. The former’s layout does even look like a Word-document, a piece of paper that can be hung on walls and trees for promotion or distributed around the neighbourhood.

Most of the research objects are not daring the audience, challenging it or offering space to wander around and explore the website. Information is provided in a quite rigid, symmetrical and predefined structure. Considering the vertical orientation of the websites, the essential information is often given in the upper half of the page. When the viewer scrolls down less important information can be found, implied by the size, placement and amount of text. Turista Libre offers equally important information from top to bottom of its page, since multiple tours are presented. Horizontally, the left side of the pages often requests most attention, especially when a website consists of two columns as mentioned before. The right sides often offer additional information, illustrative images, or a button to buy tickets. This is an important element of the website, but by guiding the attention of the audience here at the end of its reading and viewing journey, it will not consider it as the primary goal of the organisation. Again, the layout and design of the websites implicate that their intent is to provide information.

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25 Parque EcoAlberto’s and Edgeline Productions’ websites do (seemingly) offer slightly more space for exploration. The reading behaviour of Parque EcoAlberto’s website is not only guided by columns, but also by movement of the content: while scrolling down some images, like the header and footer, and text blocks (dis)appear. This makes the site look more playful, creating a scrapbook-like look that connotes the creation of memories. It also suggests open space for the viewer to move around, but actually determines where the readers’ attention is attracted to even more than other websites do. Another website that allows for wandering is Edgeline Productions’ one, since the information on the tour is distributed over multiple webpages instead of concentrated on one. All websites contain a horizontally oriented menu that leads to information other than the tour. Edgeline Productions uses a vertical menu, leading to more information of aspects of the border tour, such as “Your Guide”, “Satellite Map” and “Costs and Schedule”. This invites the reader to explore different pages without implicating one is more important than the other and makes the tour feel more personal.: the information is left for the audience to be searched and found and is not just sent to be consumed. This individual feeling is strengthened by inclusion of pages like “Your Guide”, “Border Tales” and the idea that you do not buy a ticket, but “Sign Up”, as will be further discussed in the chapter on written signifiers.

Conclusion

Luna-Nevarez and Hyman conclude that “in general, [tourism destination] websites are moving to simpler but more visually attractive designs, with the focus shifting from text-based content to visually appealing multimedia elements” (104). This is not the case for the researched websites, though. In comparison to for example the larger tourism destination websites of California or the United States, the subjects of this thesis are more text-oriented and not very visually developed or attractive (Visit California; Brand USA). Multimedia elements influence first impressions of tourists looking at a website, encourage them to explore it further and can create the impression of reliability and high quality (Luna-Nevarez & Hyman 95). As has been mentioned before, the websites promoting a tour on border crossing seem to have another goal than attracting tourists and making them take part in the tour offered. Use of an unambiguous website with a clean design, that is easy to use, without too much promotional or additional elements and commercial transactions, gives the impression that the organisation is not commercially oriented, but informative.

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Chapter 3 | Visual analysis

Introduction

As has been mentioned in the previous chapter, all research objects contain photographs, images and/or (links to) videos. San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network is the only organisation using only one visual element on its webpage, the others contain multiple elements. MAGA, Edgeline Productions Border Tours and San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network are the only websites in this thesis using a video to create a visual impression of their tour, with MAGA including it on its page and the other two using a hyperlink to refer to material on another media platform. In this chapter, all photographs, images and videos will be analysed. Because the approach of this research is to analyse the webpages considering the tours, the videos that can be found via hyperlinks on Edgeline Productions Border Tours’ and San Diego Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network’s website will not be included. The sub-question answered in this chapter is: In what ways do visual signifiers on the websites of organisations offering United States-Mexico border crossing tours construct and communicate meanings of the tour offered?

According to Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, “we decode images by interpreting clues to intended, unintended, and even merely suggested meanings. These clues may be formal elements such as colour, shades of black and white, tone, contrast, composition, depth, perspective, and style of address to the viewer” (26). Of course, this decoding happens within the frame of reference of the viewer, in a certain setting and context. Elements of this setting such as age, gender, cultural identity and political and social context cannot be changed, but there are also aspects of the position of the viewer that can be chosen. Stuart Hall has determined three different positions viewers can take to decode images: the dominant-hegemonic reading, which focuses on the “dominant message of an image in an unquestioning manner”; the negotiated reading, combining the dominant meaning with an interpretation from the image; and the oppositional reading, taking a position “completely disagreeing with the ideological position embodied in an image or rejecting it altogether” (Sturken & Cartwright 57). The researcher will try to take all positions in this chapter and decode the images from different points of view, but will of course be influenced by cultural identity, age and political and social context.

Photographs

Road trips and fences

Center for Immigration Studies and Gray Line Tours show pictures of the border in a national park-like, off road, sunny, dry area with some vegetation. An important difference between the photograph on the Gray Line Tours and the photographs on the Center for Immigration Studies webpage is that the latter

Now let us show it you: A multimodal discourse analysis of websites offering United States-Mexico border crossing tours

A multimodal discourse analysis of websites offering

United States-Mexico border crossing tours

Master Thesis Tourism and Culture

Abstract

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Border crossing

Dark tourism

Dark tourism website analysis

Website selection

Multimodal discourse analysis

Chapter 2 | Layout and design analysis

Chapter 3 | Visual analysis

Road trips and fences